It's flu season. Time to either protect yourself from getting sick, or, if you are already sick, prevent your illness from spreading to others. Hence, sickness masks.

But not everyone who wears sickness masks are, well, sick! Sometimes their faces are cold. Sometimes the air is dry. But now, with pollution being recognized as a big problem in China, some folks are wearing masks to filter the air. While the masks might look adorable, pollution isn't cute. At all. Blade Runner- or Silent Hill-esque, but hardly cute.

Via China News and China Explosion, here is a collection of "cute" masks spotted on the streets of Beijing. Cute masks like this aren't exactly new, nor are they the only kind worn (people wear white ones, too!). But whatever their shape or color, the masks are perhaps a reminder of how worried some people are about the air quality.